


What Might Have Been

by SuperQatarGirl



Series: Watcher of the Living Lands [4]
Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Angst, Auroras, Backstory, Blizzards & Snowstorms, Fox companion, Gen, Lion Companion, Reminiscing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-14 17:54:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17513201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperQatarGirl/pseuds/SuperQatarGirl
Summary: Home can feel so far away, and not just in the physical world.





	What Might Have Been

Of course there had to be a blizzard when they decided to travel to the White March, and of course it had to be one of those “surprise blizzards” as Sagani liked to call them.

“They’re like the best hunters,” she’d said. “You never see them coming.”

Luckily, there had been shelter not too far away when the storm set in, or Sagani wasn’t sure most of her companions would have survived, Aloth especially so, what with his Aedyr style armour. What was the man thinking having no sleeves on his armour in a place like the Dyrwood? Thankfully, a few of their number had experience with blizzards, Sagani mainly, though Ninleyn had gotten through what he claimed was his fair share of snowstorms, and thus, they were both able to help the others cope with the cold, howling winds and the snow whipping them in the face.

It was night now and the group had as good a fire going as they could manage in this weather – thanks to Durance, who would have guessed –, though it was obvious that it did rather little to stop the incessant shivering. Most everyone sat huddled together around the flame, the added body heat of both Kharis and Itumaak helping a great deal more than one might expect, though Ninleyn was nowhere to be seen in the immediate vicinity. This had the huntress worried; it was never a good idea to go out alone in a blizzard, to put it mildly, and Ninleyn had to know this. So she got up from the group and caught Itumaak’s ear twitching slightly at her movement, though he remained in his spot by the fire, huddling as close to Hiravias as was physically possible.

Sagani made a quick survey of the room and saw a quick flutter of what she recognised as Ninleyn’s cape from the entrance to the cave they had been resting in for the last few days. She made her way over to the mouth of the cave, gently wrapping herself up in the cape she had brought with her from Masuuk and was both surprised and not to see the wood elf hunter standing with his back leaning against the rock that made up the outside of the cave, arms crossed and eyes closed. How long had he been standing there? Long enough that snow covered his eyebrows and sprinkled his eyelashes, as far as she could tell in this darkness, but in the current weather, that was possible in a matter of seconds.

“What are you doing out here?” the huntress asked loud enough that Ninleyn was sure to hear her over the winds, and sure enough he turned his head and cracked an eye open to look over at her.

“Just thinking,” he replied with a casual shrug, oddly not as affected by the cold and snow as Sagani had thought he would be, though he had proven to be extremely resilient before.

“About what?” Ah, shit, the wind was blowing so hard that Sagani felt one of her eyes closing as to prevent snow from entering it.

She saw the Watcher’s chest jump up once in a motion she knew meant he had laughed to himself, even though she couldn’t hear it: “About how different my life might have been if I had been a hunter for my birth village, like you are for Masuuk.”

“Yeah, I’ve been wondering why you weren’t,” the huntress admitted as she moved to stand beside Ninleyn, adopting the stance that he had resumed while he spoke to her. “Is it like in Naasitaq?”

“No,” he replied with a shake of his head, she presumed. “Nobody cared what you did, as long as you were useful. I just didn’t particularly like the company that seemed to be overly fond of me.”

“Oh?” This was new to her. She could understand why people found the young – for an elf – man attractive, with his sharp features, likable disposition and his great skills as a hunter, but she did not know that he had ever been actively pursued and had disliked it.

“Yeah, too many daughters of influential village elders for my tastes.” There was humour in his voice, as there most often was, but Sagani could hear the underlying tones of bitterness despite the blizzard winds.

“What happened?” she asked, hoping it was not too sore of a spot for her fellow hunter, though she knew it was hard to offend the man, so she wasn’t too worried.

“I rejected one of them one too many times, apparently, and then when she got pregnant with another man’s child she ran to the head of the village – her father, what a coincidence – and told him I had gotten her pregnant!” Sagani knew Ninleyn was making hand gestures as he spoke – an aspect of his character that she had always found amusing and engaging – and she could only imagine which ones he was making as he narrated this tale for her. “In a society as small and as secluded as that village was, that sort of accusation gets you banished from the walls. I was already living outside them at the time, so they did the only thing they could think of as punishment.”

“Which was?” This was turning out to be a bit like one of those Valian whodunits she’d read a few of in her long hunt for Persoq; all very exciting.

“They drove me and Kharis out of the valley. Completely.” There was a solemnity to Ninleyn’s voice that Sagani had never heard before and she couldn’t stop herself from opening her eyes and looking at his face, only to discover that his expression matched his tone perfectly. This was clearly not something he liked talking about and Sagani knew the feeling.

“The valley was your home, your hunting ground,” she explained, mainly to herself. “Losing that because of something you didn’t even do was hard for you and it drove you here. I can understand that.”

“That’s what I mean when I say I think about how different my life might have been if I had been a hunter for the village.” The laughing tone was back, but it was nowhere near joyful, it was all oddly wistful. “I might have been allowed to stay within the valley and would never have felt the need to leave the Living Lands in the first place. And this might never have happened to me; none of this would ever have happened.”

There was a long pause after those last words, and Sagani did not know what to say or how to feel. As it turned out, she didn’t need to say anything, as Ninleyn broke it all on his own.

“As things are now, I’m at least glad I’ve seen as much of the world as I have before I lose my mind completely.” This time Sagani heard him laugh as well as saw the crooked smile on his lips before he opened his eyes and seemed to stare off into the distance. “Looks like this blizzard is going to clear up soon enough.”

“Why do you say that?” Sagani asked, perplexed and sceptic and a bit surprised at the sudden turn in the conversation.

“Because of that.” And with a long finger pointed at the horizon, that was the last thing Ninleyn said before he retreated back into the cave. Sagani’s gaze turned the way he had pointed and there she saw something in a sliver of clear sky between mountain tops and dense clouds, that she had not seen since she left Masuuk all those years ago and had not thought she would see for a long time yet: the dancing blue-green ribbons of light that would twirl across the southern skies of Eora apparently also found their home in the northern nights. And she smiled, genuinely.


End file.
